Glee For RENT
by Hemogasms
Summary: Glee, RENT style. Based on the Live Broadway performance. In a time rife with poverty and AIDS in NYC, true loves meet, lives cross, and none of them will ever be the same again. Will Santana light Brittany's candle? Will Quinn survive the Tango Rachel?


**AN: So I had this crazy idea a while back. Rent, Glee style. Wrote this sample, just to see if I liked the tone, showed my girlfriend who **_**hated**_** it (mainly because of my character choices) and scrapped the entire thing. With the spoiler about a certain RENT number perhaps being done on Glee, I decided now was as good a time as ever to exhume this and see what you guys think about me doing the whole story.**

**So, this is just a **_**sample**_**, a scene (one of my faves), please give it a read and let me know if it's worth me taking this up as a serious project? If there's interest and I decide it isn't garbage, I'll start the story from the beginning, basing the fic on the broadway performance of RENT, with some of my own stuff added in there too. The story would be Brittana centric, with plenty of Faberry, and background Klaine (very background).**

-Intended Cast-  
~Mark: Finn  
~Joanne: Quinn  
~Maureen: Rachel  
~Rodger: Santana  
~Mimi: Brittany  
~Collins: Blaine  
~Angel: Kurt  
~Paul: Mr Schue  
~Garry: Mike  
~Dealer: Sebastian

#Sample Scene: Brittana

*Finn, Kurt and Blaine have just left for Life Support*

Santana watched them leave, her fingers traced the cool wood of her guitar as the door slammed shut behind them. Every string, each fret set along it's neck felt familiar yet foreign, an old friend, a lover, lost and rediscovered; a passion lost to it, lost like everything else, to the disease.

A knock at the door pulled her from her thoughts, the kind of thoughts she spent too much time thinking lately, the ones that seemed to consume her mind as the disease did her body - death, and it's impending arrival, would never sit well with her. "What did you forget?" she called out absently, anticipating a flustered Finn, rushing back in for a forgotten lens or spare battery for his camera.

"Got a light?" the reply was as unexpected as the voice that spoke it, female, soft but assured, musical. Santana found herself off the table she had been perched on, her guitar and her thoughts both forgotten, as she strode quickly across the bare apartment to pull open the door.

The sight that greeted her was unexpected and she felt something stir inside herself, something that had remained dormant, silent, undisturbed since... She pushed the thought away. The voice belonged to a girl. She looked young, almost too young, her blonde hair tumbled down past her shoulders, and her eyes were as blue as the Spanish oceans Santana remembered from her home, bluer even, and something about them, in them she realised, made her feel instantly and irrationally at home.

Brown eyes continued their journey, briefly sliding down the stranger's body, lithe, toned, she looked flexible to a fault, but thin, her jeans and tee hung loosely from her delicate frame, one that was suddenly familiar. "I know you" Santana was saying before she could stop herself. Usually she never had much to say, or nothing pleasant anyway, so the change in herself surprised her, and she couldn't place what it was about this familiar blonde stranger that had her mouth moving freely, her lips trying to form words. "You're...you're..." a name, a place, they eluded her, instantly frustrating the Latina, though the annoyance dissipated quickly, irrelevant, as she noticed something, "You're shivering" she observed aloud.

Brittany faltered, her voice caught as she answered, "It's nothing, they turned off my heat". Her blue eyes met brown and she forced herself to hold their scrutinising gaze, as she felt something she had not felt in a long time - she was suddenly shy, though she recovered quickly. "And I'm just a little weak on my feet" she added, unthinking, as she forced herself to be bold and stepped forward through the open door and into the apartment above her own. The way this girl looked at her, the twinge of shyness, modesty, she felt as molten treacle eyes roamed her body, somehow they didn't feel predatory like the ones she had grown accustomed to, they reminded her of who she really was; well, who she used to be. Letting herself take in long dark hair and skin the color of spun caramel, she briefly remembered the carefree, optimistic, if slightly child-like girl that she used to be, the wonder she could find in the smallest of things, until one wrong boyfriend, one dirty needle, just a few bad choices had sent that world, her world, crashing around her feet. Her diagnosis had forced her to change, to grow up fast, to evolve and learn to survive. She'd given up what she was and become what she needed to be to remain functional... But wasn't that the story with everyone who got acquired immunodeficiency syndrome... Everyone who got AIDs?

"Would you light my candle?" Brittany asked, holding up the cylinder of wax, remembering what had brought her up the stairs of her building that freezing night to begin with. Santana looked away, everything was suddenly too painful, too familiar. A beautiful young girl, those shakes, the way her collarbones jutted out under her skin, the slight purple staining beneath her eyes, she knew this, she had loved it, she had lived it. Her eyes met blue and she held her gaze, lost for a moment in the past, in what had been, what could, and maybe even should, be now.

Brittany held her head up under the scrutiny of dark eyes, feeling herself grow restless at their gaze. Before the disease she would never have spoken up, in fact she would probably have blushed, looked away maybe, bashful, but when your lifespan drops fifty years and time becomes a commodity rather than a given, it forces you to grow more bold. "What are you staring at?" her tone was half a question born from curiosity and half a demand of the darker girl's intent.

"Nothing" Santana replied quickly, a little embarrassed with herself, though she tried not to let it show, "Your hair in the moonlight..." the words had spilled out before she could stop them, as she quickly averted her eyes, routing in her pocket to pull out a book of matches, unsure what to make of her own forthcoming. Brittany smiled softly, it was brief, but a smile nonetheless, an honest one, which was something she hadn't done in a while. The match took as Santana struck it, and their eyes met as the burning splinter of wood touched the wick of the white candle clutched in Brittany's pale fingers. Brittany felt her breath catch in her throat, this girl was so pretty, beautiful, exotic somehow, her brown eyes turned to smouldering, glowing embers as they caught the firelight.

"You look familiar" the other girl's words broke her from her trance and Brittany turned to leave, embarrassed and caught off guard by her thoughts, her heart that was hammering against her ribcage so hard that she was sure it was audible above the quiet din emanating from the New York City streets below, rising up through one of the apartments shattered windows.

Santana watched the blonde turn to leave, and suddenly she wanted her to stay, so much so that she almost called out for her to wait, but she stopped herself... She was Santana Lopez, she didn't need anyone - she had made that mistake once before and it was one that she would never repeat. "Can you make it?" she called out, unable to stop herself.

Brittany hesitated, her stomach flipping as she turned back around, "I just didn't eat today" she replied, suddenly wary that the other girl knew the real reason for her weakness, "At least the room stopped spinning anyway" she continued a little nervously now, eager to avert attention from her condition, to keep the beautiful Latina talking, to not have to leave, go back to her own small, freezing, apartment, to be alone there, alone in this world again so soon. "What?" she enquired playfully, noticing dark eyes following her as she moved back into the apartment.

"Nothing" Santana replied a little too quickly, internally appalled - had she lost all her game? The thought caught her off guard... Was that what this was? Was she trying, since when did she ever have to try, to flirt? Since... "Your smile reminded me of..." she admitted aloud.

"I always remind people of..." Brittany cut in quickly. Most of the men who came to watch her dance, paid her the money she needed to survive and support her habit told her the same thing. It saddened her for a reason she couldn't decipher that this girl who made her feel... something, shared their sentiment. "Who is she?" she demanded, unable to stop herself although she wasn't sure she actually wanted to know, she didn't want the dream to shatter, not just yet. She sidestepped the girl easily, briskly, avoiding her eyes.

"She died" Santana found herself replying quickly, somehow she was reluctant to give the blonde the impression there was anyone... significant, in her life, "Her name was April". That word, that name, 'died'... 'April'... They rolled off her tongue too easily, her lips were loose, too loose, yet somehow her prison was abolished, she felt both liberated and terrified around this girl. For the first time since the tragedy of her ex-girlfriend's suicide and finding out her own life was to be cut short too, Santana found she could feel; she finally felt like she was capable, close even, to moving on. Before she could ponder this further, those same pale, shaking fingers had thrust the now lightly smoking stick of wax towards her.

"It's out again" Brittany declared, though she could not meet the latina's eye as she licked her lips that had dried a little as she'd secretly blown out the flame, needing to regain some attention. This girl clearly had baggage - she'd known love, which was something Brittany hadn't. The blonde sighed softly as she realised she was falling back into her old ways, that old familiar trap; she had let herself hope. Brittany had learned by now that hope only ever lead to one thing - disappointment, after all, what right did she have to hope anymore anyway? How could someone like her hope to find love? In what world would it be just that she would meet someone to love her, need her, care for her unconditionally and irrevocably, only for her to die? "Sorry about your friend" she added, selecting that last word carefully, it was clear the girl had been much more than that, but that didn't mean she had to say it.

Santana studied the girl's back as she reached for her matches again, her pointed use of the word 'friend', the way her eyes stayed away, the stiff set of her shoulders... The Latina cursed under her breath at her own apparent inability to talk to women anymore. She struck the match and carefully lit the blonde's candle again, unable to help but notice once more the way the moonlight caught her blonde hair, turning it a dazzling silver, strands of silk, shimmering in the soft light that crept in through the dirty window. It was clear the girl was upset, though the reason why, was not quite as transparent. A small smile graced Santana's full lips as she deduced that the blonde must like her, be interested in her, before it all too quickly fell away... It would be wrong, inhumane, to see someone so young, so beautiful, grow attached to someone whose days were close to numbered. She bristled at her own thoughts, suddenly aware that there was no way that this could end well for either of them if she let it go on. "Well?" she demanded, the candle was lit and she saw no reason for the girl to stay, at least none that weren't utterly selfish anyway.

Brittany spun around, her blue eyes alight with the dancing flame of the candle, and happiness - having mistaken the urgency in the other girl's tone for her having something to say, "Yes?" she enquired with a soft hopeful smile, one that disarmed Santana completely. "Oww" Brittany mumbled as the sudden movement made the wax spill over the candles apex and sent it running down the milky skin of the back of her hand, burning for just a second before it cooled and set there.

"Oh..." Santana stepped forward without thinking, her has automatically reaching for the blonde's injured one, her skin was cool, but soft , and as she touched her, Santana felt an unfamiliar tingle across the back of her neck, down her spine, on her lips... "The wax" she observed aloud, "It's..."

"Dripping" Brittany cut in quickly, her blue eyes searching out brown. That soft caramel hand hand wrapped around her own, the soft slide of their fingers over each other... It was selfish she knew, selfish to covet something, want it, want her, as she did, yet there was something about this girl and she just couldn't stop herself. AIDs or not, she wanted to know her...to have her, dead girlfriend be damned. "I like it between my..." she began seductively. Such a crude phrase as the one she uttered would have made her blush a pretty pink, giggle perhaps, once upon a time, but not anymore, those days were long gone; alone in the big city she had quickly learned to use what she had, learned how to play the part of the seductress... She had learned how to survive.

"Fingers, I figure" Santana piped up, automatically dropping the hand she held, stepping away not wanting the girl to finish that sentence, she didn't want to go there, to do this, they were clutching the lid of Pandora's box between them, and something told her that it ought to stay closed. She didn't know why but the blonde seemed to be determined to make herself impossible to resist, a task she was dangerously close to completing, the slight pout of her slim pink lips, the soft shine on her azure blue eyes, they coerced Santana, pulled her closer, and she suddenly found it harder that she should to stay away. The old Santana, the girl she used to be, before April, before... AIDs, she would have revelled in such attention from the beautiful blonde, but as it was she just wished he had met her sooner... No April, no AIDs, just a happy successful singer-songwriter living out her lengthy life; her thoughts went there before she could catch them. It was too much, too confusing, she couldn't...she shouldn't. "Oh well" she spoke up, her gaze hardening as she forced herself to meet those perfect ocean eyes, her earlier falter recovered, as she forced herself to say the one word she suddenly loathed, to end her meeting with this beautiful blonde that had knocked at her door and unknowingly opened so many doors, doors that she had kept closed and padlocked for so long, doors that left her head spinning. "Goodnight" she heard her own voice say, ringing with a finality that surprised even her. Her eyes closed in regret as the door clicked closed, regret for the look of indignation the girl, whose name she hadn't even asked, had shot her as she left, regret for the decisions she had made, regret for this life.

As the door clicked closed behind her, the color leeched out of the dimly lit hall, and with her distraction, the first thing in a year that she had wanted more than the drugs, gone, Brittany felt the shaking intensify, and she was suddenly, acutely aware that she needed her fix. She silently wished that things were different, wished she was still just that same girl she used to be, that girl so full of love, hope for the future...the one that had a future. She wanted to be the girl that danced in the studio again, not the one on the pole. She wished she had met someone like her, like the beautiful, complicated, evasive Latina she had just spoken to, she wished she had found that before that boy... Before that one needle.

Unable to deal with the thoughts anymore, the pointless wishing, the empty hope, her fingers reached into her jeans pocket. She was whirling around, flying back towards the door, slender fingers tapping against the hardwood without thinking, as she realised her pocket, the one where the little plastic packet should be, it was empty.

**Thoughts are greatly appreciated!**


End file.
